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Jan. 11, 2011 - Rush Limbaugh Program
36:45
January 11, 2011, Tuesday, Hour #1
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Time Text
Welcome to today's edition of the Rush 24-7 podcast.
Now, the news media is going to lose interest in this shooting out there pretty soon now.
It's in the cards, folks.
It's just probably won't even last the balance of this week.
And they'll have moved on as, well, because I somehow have hijacked this from Sarah Palin.
Over the weekend and yesterday morning, Sarah Palin was responsible for the shooting.
Now it's me.
This idiot sheriff has gone, I don't know who's coaching the guy, but he's blown it.
He's out there blaming me now.
I'm, you know, the radio did it.
That's going to be the defense.
The radio did it, but I'm not running for office.
They think Palin's going to be running for office, and so they figure they can no longer get away with blaming the Tucson shootings on Palin or the Tea Party.
They'll move on to other things, which they already are.
I told you yesterday because of the quick move to gun control.
There's a new Facebook page out there started last night.
I hate it when I wake up and Sarah Palin is still alive.
And there are 2,051 friends, people who like this so far.
I hate it when I wake up and Sarah Palin is still alive.
Perhaps another indication of just how off the tracks this whole thing is becoming for the left.
Perhaps the, I mean, the show that they're just throwing the kitchen sink out there now.
And by the way, in mere moments, we have a warning from the sheriff.
Sheriff Dipstick himself has asked for time on this program.
We have granted him a few seconds.
And we have a warning from him for all of you, for the good of the country, coming in mere moments.
Plus, I'm going to endeavor to in-depth explain for the gazillionth time since I began this program, the liberal mind on this.
But to show you that it's about over, that they're throwing everything up with the kitchen sink here and hoping it sticks to the wall.
This is last night on Sergeant Schultz's show.
Well, maybe it was on Sergeant Schultz's radio show.
I don't know which.
Sergeant Schultz, one of his two shows.
Jim Clyburn, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, explaining what caused the shooting.
All of this stuff about delegitimizing the president of the United States, that is uncalled for.
And all the stuff taking place in the chambers the other day when the Constitution was being read, all that stuff is uncalled for.
They're hanging over the banisters that some members did last year, egging on the demonstrators out there.
That stuff is uncalled for.
We ought to conduct ourselves in public office in the way we teach our children to conduct themselves.
Did you hear this?
I know it's kind of hard to understand.
He said all this stuff about delegitimizing the president, that's uncalled for.
All of the stuff taking place in the chambers the other day when the Constitution was being read, all that's uncalled for.
So reading the Constitution led to the shooting of a Democrat member of Congress, according to James Clyburn, Democrat South Carolina.
How more ridiculous can you get?
By the way, there also is a kill Sarah Palin Facebook page.
There are two Facebook pages that have to do with Sarah Palin dying.
Reading, yes, you heard correct.
Congressman Clyburn reading the Constitution was uncalled for.
He was answering a question of what led to all this?
What really is reading the Constitution on the floor of the House?
Here, ladies and gentlemen, a warning from Sheriff Clarence Dipstick from Arizona.
Annullah warning from Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik.
Continuous listening to the Rush Limbaugh show and this kind of rhetoric will cause you to smoke marijuana, attempt to use it as a currency, build a skull shrine in your backyard to worship Satan, and read and admire the Communist Manifesto.
All signs of becoming a serious conservative nutcase.
In the end, you may even become susceptible to subliminal messages from Sarah Palin.
Please turn off your radio and let law enforcement professionals like me handle your need for news and information.
Thank you.
Any rational content of this message is purely coincidental.
An exclusive warning to those of you in this program offered by, I mistakenly said, dipstick.
Somebody's been writing to me calling him that.
It just, it's kind of you got a favorite song in your mind and it won't leave.
Clarence Dupnik, Pima County Sheriff, warning of all the terrible things that go wrong listening to this program.
Folks, the left is, in its various forms, the media politics, etc., the left cannot accept the reality of a madman slaughtering innocent people.
They can't accept that.
It has to be something more.
It cannot be individual responsibility.
They reject that concept anyway, whatever we're talking about.
But the reality of a madman slaughtering innocent people in their dream world, it's not possible.
The reality of their rejection in the last election, they cannot accept that.
Really, I'm talking psychologically, a huge rejection.
They just got blown off by every girlfriend they've ever had trying to understand the magnanimity of this or the magnanimous or the big bigness of it.
Having a mental block on the word I want to use.
They see everything through the prism of their desires, their power, their designs.
That's how they view the world.
Through the prism of their desires, their power, their designs.
They live in a fantasy world.
They believe utopia can happen.
They believe they are the architects.
They cannot deal with anything that happens in reality that illustrates there's no utopia and that they can't make it happen.
Now, we, on the other hand, the rational, we see this killing for what it is.
We pray for the victims and their families.
We support legitimate law enforcement's efforts to investigate and prosecute the killer.
Our thoughts and emotions focus on the event.
We don't seek a deeper understanding of it.
We do not seek to advance our political agenda, except to the extent that we are about truth, which is why we look specifically at evidence and facts.
We don't look at dreams.
We don't look at, gee, I hope this is the result of, gee, can we make people think this is the result of we, conservatives, conservatism, we, As I have said for 23 years in this program, it's a daily, relentless, unstoppable pursuit of the truth.
I live, I have told you countless times, in literalville.
I live in Realville.
And I understand that not many people do, but I do.
We, I, we don't seek a deeper understanding of a madman like this who has committed the worst kind of crime.
You see, this guy is mugshot.
I mean, this is the mugshot of all mugshots.
This guy's getting exactly what he's wanted.
Attention out the wazoo.
And stop and think of this.
What Mr. Lofner knows is that he has the full support of a major political party in this country.
He's sitting there in jail.
He knows what's going on.
He knows that a Democrat Party, the Democrat Party, is attempting to find anybody but him to blame.
He knows if he plays his cards right, he's just a victim.
He's the latest in a never-ending parade of victims brought about by the unfairness of America, the bigotry, racism, sexism, homophobia of America, the mean-spiritedness of America.
So he sits around, he gets reports.
He understands that, I mean, he never probably never paid the attention to Sarah Payton.
All of his friends say he didn't like things political.
This guy's been on the sheriff's radar in Pima County since 2007, long before Sarah Palin was nominated to run with McCain and long before there was a Tea Party.
That smiling mugshot, this guy clearly understands he's getting all the attention and he understands he's got a political party doing everything it can, plus a local sheriff doing everything that they can to make sure he's not convicted of murder, but something lesser.
He's a victim.
He's deranged and yet he's smiling.
He's snickering at every one of us in that mugshot.
What must it feel like to be Jared Lofner?
To know you've done this and to realize that the party of the president of the United States is trying to figure out a way to blame their political opponents for it.
To understand that advisors to the president are telling him how to capitalize on this incident for his own political advancement, the president.
He's got to be sitting there thinking, what a lucky turn of events this is.
Thank goodness they're focusing on the Congresswoman.
Thank goodness the media, Mr. Lofner saying, doesn't care about the dead Republican judge.
I got a note from my friend Andy McCarthy today.
He said, I wonder, Rush, what would happen if things were a little different here?
Let's say that the dead individual happened to be a Democrat judge.
The wounded individual fighting for life is a Republican member of Congress.
Who do you think the media would be focused on in that incident?
It's a rhetorical question, but we all have the answer to it.
So if you're Jared Lofner, no wonder you're smiling in your mug shut.
The entire political party of the Democrat Party working to blame somebody other than you Make you, Jared Lofner, the victim and trying to find a way for that party to use this as a way to advance their own political agenda.
We don't do any of that on the conservative side of things.
We don't seek a deeper understanding of madmen who commit the worst kind of crimes.
We seek justice.
The left seeks more.
What's happening here, folks?
The American left, liberals, Democrat Party, right now, we're watching it, are trying to justify their own existence.
They're trying to justify their own politics, their own ideology, through unrelated events like this, seeks to advance them through the derangement of projection.
That is, they are good people.
They know the truth.
And those who disagree with them are bad and are know-nothings.
And they think if the world were just more organized by them, if the world were just more centralized by them, if the world were just more controlled by them, bad things like this wouldn't happen, they believe.
There would be less hate if they controlled everything.
There would be less violence if they controlled everything.
There would not be any poverty if they controlled everything.
There wouldn't be any real wealth if they controlled everything.
Everybody would be the same.
They're good.
They know the truth.
If only the rest of us would learn or be forced to adapt to their beliefs and embrace their truth, things like this would never happen ever again.
Nobody would ever die.
So they lash out no matter how irrationally, no matter how irresponsibly against those who reject them, which is a majority of the country.
To the American left, for the American left or the Democrats, no individual and no one event is bigger than them and their beliefs.
Therefore, every opportunity must be taken to advance their agenda, no matter how unrelated events are to their belief system.
This sheriff is an embarrassment to committed law enforcement officers all over the country.
This guy, Joe Arpaio, even says, I hope this guy is not creating a defense for smart lawyers to use.
Well, he's already done that.
There are a lot of things this sheriff doesn't want people to learn.
And I think one of the reasons that Sheriff Dupnik is lashing out at me, I did call him out personally yesterday, justifiably so.
I think one of the reasons he's lashing out at me is to hide all of the opportunities his department has had to put this guy away before this event happened.
We have a timeline and a series of facts about the incidents involving Mr. Lofner in the jurisdiction out there where the sheriff, his department, had ample opportunity to.
I mean, how did this guy get a gun?
Well, he passed the federal requirement because he didn't have something didn't produce a red flag.
I forget what it was.
Now, I don't know that this guy was on unemployment benefits, Mr. Lofner.
I don't know if he had a job or not.
I don't know if he was on extended unemployment benefits.
But what if he was?
Do we need a rule?
Should there be some rules about the mentally ill receiving unemployment benefits from the federal government?
Who knows how they're going to spend the money?
I mean, we can start generalizing in ways here that are like Quinn Hillier, the American Inspector, had a pretty good post.
This guy is an atheist.
Therefore, all atheists are mass murderers.
Therefore, all atheists need to be locked up.
I mean, this is turning on its head the quote-unquote logic the Democrats and the left are trying to use against me, Sarah Palin.
Well, you name it.
Names on the right, Tea Party at large.
So that's where we are.
Oh, and even this, the no labels gang has moved in on this from the Washington Post.
The Tucson tragedy, a real opportunity for nonpartisan groups, no labels.
As the debate over civility in politics continues in the wake of the shooting in Tucson, groups founded to push bipartisanship see an opening.
Could this be a moment for the political middle?
Mark McKinnon, co-founder of No Labels, nonpartisan group founded last month is a real tragedy, but it's also a real opportunity.
Third way, a group of moderate Democrats doesn't exist.
There are no moderate Democrats.
They're all Democrats.
Is likewise seeking to spur the conversation on moderation.
Yeah, well, all these moderates, great independents, who'd they vote for in November?
Republicans.
I think, I got to take a quick break.
And Mr. Lofner, if anything, he was no labels guy.
He himself was no labels.
He wasn't a Republican or Democrat.
He didn't like politics.
Made the order for the no labels group, and he's a murderer.
Hey, folks, let's dabble here in a conspiracy theory just for the fun of it.
While the drive-bys and Sheriff Dupnik and others are now trying to lay this squarely on me, who was it last November who actually suggested that Obama needed an event like this, just like Clinton had the Oklahoma City bombing, to revitalize his presidency?
It was Mark Penn, a Democrat pollster and fundraiser.
Well, I mean, what more do you need?
You've got a Democrat fundraiser, pollster, Mark Penn, very popular, worked with Hillary, suggesting what Obama needs is an event like Oklahoma City, people mass murdered, to revitalize his presidency.
All of a sudden, here in early January, we get one.
I'm going to connect the dots.
Your average conspiracy theorist would suggest, are the Democrats behind this?
Because Democrats, powerful Democrats, wished for this.
It happened on Chris Matthews' show.
Powerful Democrats wished for this as a means of an opportunity for the president to shore up his sagging base, poll numbers or what have you.
Voila, in two months' time, we have a nutcase opening fire in Tucson, Arizona.
And lo and behold, leading Democrats are conducting strategy sessions with the president on how he can use the right words to maximize this event.
You don't want to lay this on me or Palin when I have nothing to do with it.
Yet leading Democrats actually hoped for this.
Interesting conspiracy theory.
Hey, I want to remind you again, the first episode of the Haney Project starring me with Hank Haney, 9 o'clock Eastern tonight on the Golf Channel.
And a pretty good, we've linked to it at rushlinbog.com.
A couple of interviews I did with the USA Today that runs today, both in the newspaper and an extended version on their website.
That's what we have what we've linked to.
And this is the first of eight episodes that debut tonight at 9 o'clock Eastern on the Golf Show.
Why are you smiling at me, Dawn?
You think I'm off the beaten path here?
I mean, there's other things out there than the sheriff.
It's a good show.
At any rate, I want to go back to this no labels business because I had to squeeze that in for our previous segment ended.
And I'm not making this up.
The Washington Post, as the debate over civility in politics continues in the wake of the shooting in Tucson, groups founded to push bipartisanship see an opening.
Could this be a moment for the political middle?
Routinely ignored amid heated discussions over immigration and health care, moderate groups on the right and the left are hoping their message of comedy can finally take hold.
Mark McKinnon, co-founder of No Labels, a nonpartisan group founded last month, said it's a real tragedy, but it's also a real opportunity.
Now, McKinnon claims a Republican only because he worked on Bush 43 campaigns, but he's a Democrat other than that.
But as I said earlier, we don't look for opportunity here in tragedy.
This is not what we do.
And certainly somebody nonpartisan wouldn't.
Remember now, this no labels group is not nonpartisan.
They're Democrats.
They are liberals looking for clients.
They want to be the people that can tell elected officials how to get elected by securing the middle, the 20% moderates, independents, or what have you.
They claim to be experts on those people who are not ideologically aligned.
Says here, the Republican consultancy is potential to change the hyper-partisan political environment, which he has described as moveon.org on the left or the Tea Party on the right.
A Tea Party and MoveOn.org his name.
Here's the bottom line.
This guy, the shooter, is a no-labels guy.
He's a registered independent.
Registered independent.
This mass murderer, a registered independent, he was part of the no-labels group.
Atheist, no party affiliation, red marks, light flag burning.
What a conservative this guy is, huh?
Lofner made to order for no labelers.
And he's a murderer.
These people have no clue what they're saying.
And I checked the email during the bottom of the hour.
You're making that up about Mark Penn.
I'm not making it up.
We had the audio soundbite of Mark Penn saying it.
We played it on the program yesterday.
Cookie, see if you can grab it real quick.
I got people claiming I'm making up the fact that Mark Penn suggested that this kind of event is what Obama needed, like Clinton had the Oklahoma City bombing.
November 5th of 2010 from the MediaIte website, Mark Penn, Democrat strategist, former chief strategist for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign, let out the kind of doozy on last night's hardball that must be seen to be believed.
Here, we have it.
This is Mark Penn with Matthews last November.
President Clinton reconnected through Oklahoma.
And the president reconnected with the scene removed.
And it wasn't until that speech that he re-clicked with the American public.
Obama needs a similar conversation.
Obama needs a similar event to achieve that reconnection following his party's midterm losses.
Well, you got it.
You had a Democrat wishing for it last November, and now we've got it.
And somehow, ladies and gentlemen, this is still my fault now, according to the sheriff.
A deeply saddened CBS News reporting today that nearly six in 10 Americans say the country's heated political rhetoric is not to blame for the Tucson shooting rampage that left six dead and critically wounded.
U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords, according to a CBS News poll.
Again, imagine if the wounded congressman were a little-known Republican and the dead federal judge a Democrat.
Imagine the difference in coverage.
Even here in the CBS News story, a federal judge appointed by George H.W. Bush is not identified.
Just one of the six dead.
That's right, Mr. Limbaugh, because this was an event of the Congresswoman's.
I understand that, Mr. New Castrovi.
I'm just saying, and we all know it.
Change this around a little bit, and I guarantee you, if the dead contained a federal judge appointed by a Democrat president, that would be the focus of the media's coverage, not the wounded Republican congressman.
So, six in 10, 60% say heated political rhetoric not to blame.
So, either our media masters have better ratchet up their efforts or move on to their fallback position, which is gun control, which they will do.
In the wake of the shooting, much focus has been put on the harsh tone of politics.
And who, by who?
Well, who put this focus on it?
The media did.
People aren't focusing on it.
You went around the country.
People, it's not what average ordinary Americans first thought of when this happened.
You would try to tell me that when people first heard the news of this shooting on Saturday, the first thought they had was, I wonder if Sarah Palin inspired it.
What if a Tea Party?
No, no, no.
It's not how people think.
The media thinks that way.
And so here's the media, Daniel Carty.
In the wake of the shooting, much focus has been put on the who put the focus on heated rhetoric.
The media did.
They set the narrative.
They set the template.
It's not a reflection of popular thinking.
It's in fact, it's the exact opposite of popular thinking.
Popular thinking does not think heated rhetoric had anything to do with this.
Media trying to create it.
Rhetoric and imagery from both Republicans and Democrats have included gun-related metaphors, but the majority of the country isn't connecting the shooting to politics.
What stunning admissions by a state-controlled news outlet, CBS News.
You know, somebody needs to dial up every Republican campaign consultant and ask him, have you ever used crosshairs or bullseyes in campaign literature?
Have you ever done so?
Ask Democrats if they have.
It's a staple in American politics.
Go to the audio soundbites, and we will start here.
Last night and this morning, we have a montage of NBC's Andrea Mitchell, me, Diane Sawyer, Jeff Brady of NPR, Willie Geist at MSNBC, Betty Wynn at CBS.
They're all talking about the Tucson shooting and me.
And the template now is that everything was just fine.
Everything was just fine until I attacked Sheriff Dupnik and the Democrats.
Started as a squall, turned into a storm.
Sad tragedies where people die are seen first as moments of political opportunity for Democrats.
The sheriff here versus Rush Limbaugh.
Rush Limbaugh was his defiant self.
Rush Limbaugh fired back at criticism.
Sheriff Dupnik is blaming extreme political rhetoric and said Rush Limbaugh is irresponsible for continuing the vitriol.
Now, Sheriff Dupnik, it needs to be pointed out, is calling for civility, right?
He's leading the call, and yet he is the one who started this.
Sheriff Dupnik started all this incendiary rhetoric.
He started baseless allegations, admitting he was speculating.
A man of the law, a sheriff speculating, admitting on Saturday and Sunday night he had no facts to back up what he was saying.
And we've now learned the sheriff long knew of the state of mind of this poor shooter out there.
I mean, there's a Reuters story that says law enforcement contacted the shooter after he made death threats.
This is back on Sunday.
I don't know if it was college police or Tucson law enforcement, but we have all kinds of college professors, college students.
This guy was a menace.
They were afraid he would walk in and start shooting with a gun.
It was well known that he was unstable out there.
Pima Community College had to call for police action on five different occasions on the shooter.
The sheriff's department says they were aware of the shooter's incidents at Pima College.
That's another story.
These items and more, interesting as to the timeline of this horrible crime.
What did the Sheriff's Department know about this kid and when?
But we know what the kid was in.
The kid doing all kinds of stuff in 2007, long before the Tea Party was formed or even before Sarah Palin was nominated to run.
So what are we supposed to do?
You know, I guarantee you, I asked the question Saturday afternoon, the American people running around doing their thing, watching football, shopping, what have you, and they hear of a mass shooting in Arizona.
What's the first thing they think of?
Sarah Palin, Tea Party, Rush Limbaugh?
No.
One of two things.
Illegal aliens went wild or a Muslim terrorist attack.
Those are the two things they'll think about.
Why?
Because those are reality.
The last thing they think is, I wonder if this guy that did the shooting in Arizona was a Sarah Palin fan.
If anything, yes, I'll say this.
If anything, this guy probably had more inclination to watch Bill Maher than read a Sarah Palin website or listen to this program.
And that's a connection.
You know, it's never made to you.
You really, no shooting, no crime somehow ever gets linked to leftist influences.
Ever.
Isn't that amazing?
Isn't it interesting?
Only conservatives who are said to be boring seem to have the ability to influence this kind of behavior.
But it's never Letterman.
It's never Bill Maher.
It's never Jon Stewart.
It's never any of these.
Never Michael Moore.
Never.
Michael Moore is running around talking about what a crime this country is.
Ill health care is, I mean, the president running around ripping the banks.
I mean, if you are a devout follower of Barack Obama, you've got to think this whole country's out to get you.
And yet leftist media people somehow are never, ever linked when it comes to inspirational messages found in the media.
Even violence in television shows and movies is rejected as an explanation.
No, no, no, no, no.
In fact, this guy was listening to, there's a YouTube video with a song.
I forget the name of the group here.
It's on the tip of my tongue.
That lyrically is very close to what the guy did.
Yeah, and the leader of the group says, our work continues to be misinterpreted here.
So the real influences on this guy are exempted and excused.
And all the leader of the band asks, oh, our work is being misinterpreted here.
Oh, okay, fine.
Sorry.
We'll go back to blaming this on Limbaugh and Palin.
And now Jim Clyburn, as we showed you in the first half hour of the program, blaming this on the reading of the Constitution on the floor of the House last week.
Uncalled-for action.
Uncalled-for action.
Yeah, the favorite video features the song, Let the Bodies Hit the Floor of the Group is the Drowning Pool.
Let the Bodies Hit the Floor in the Drowning Pool.
And they go to the lead of the Drowning Pool.
I'm sorry.
Our work continues to be misinterpreted.
Back right after this.
Yeah, we have time.
Let's squeeze in a phone call here.
Rush Limbaugh, great to have you here on the Excellence in Broadcasting Network, Garden City, Long Island.
This is Thane.
Welcome, sir.
You're up.
Thank you, Rush.
Megadidos.
Thank you.
You know, I've been listening for the last couple of days to all the news broadcasts in there.
They keep bringing up all the shootings and terror attacks and everything for the last 20 years.
But the one thing never mentioned is the one on the Long Island Railroad that Colin Ferguson did.
If you remember that, that was a month after Giuliani got elected mayor.
I do remember that.
Yeah, and he was actually found to have a note in his pocket saying that he was doing this because, A, he hates white people, and B, he wanted to be sure he was outside those city limits so he wouldn't embarrass Dinkins.
And this was after people like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson had been, you know, just scouring Giuliani and just horrible things about him.
And immediately they began walking it back saying, oh, no, this poor guy, he's just crazy.
This isn't our fault.
This is what we did.
Yeah, exactly.
This is my point.
When there is first-hand evidence that a leftist engages in this behavior because of an ideology, because if he's been influenced by somebody else, that's, no, no.
You can't say that.
It's not jumping to conclusions here.
This is a rush to judgment.
Let's wait.
We need to gather all the facts here.
The exact opposite approach to an event like this.
But I think it is important to point out again that at no time are any Democrat constituent groups ever blamed or associated.
Hollywood movies and TV are very violent.
Music is very violent.
Some music promotes violence against law enforcement people.
Obama's friend, Bill Ayers, was very violent.
We have stories of union thugs beating up Tea Party activists.
In one case, a black Tea Party activist outside St. Louis.
None of this matters.
There is no control ever proposed.
Well, there are now and then groups of social activists on the Republican side who say we need warning labels, more stringent warning labels, but no control is ever proposed over Hollywood music, associations by politicians with domestic radicals, control of union violence.
Never happens.
Nor is it the case that any left-wing media is ever associated with any violent behavior like this.
When, in fact, the profile of this guy, Jared Lofner, if he's, we know he listened to heavy metal, we know he was influenced by the Drowning Pool.
But no speculation on what if this guy does listen to talk radio or watch cable news, what shows do you think this guy actually listens to me?
Read Sarah Palin's website?
Highly unlikely.
Or do you think he might be the kind of guy that likes Bill Maher or Keith Olbermann?
It makes more sense to me anyway.
Right here it is in the Washington Post, Jared Lofner's music choice, Drowning Pool's Buddies Strikes Chilling Chord.
Stuff he listened to by heavy metal music.
And the leader of the band says, no, no, no, no.
We're being misinterpreted here.
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